James and the Giant Peach [Paperback]

Roald Dahl (Author), Lane Smith (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1996

For young James Henry Trotter, life with the exceedingly nasty Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker is pure misery. Jame dreams of a better life, but he's totally unprepared for the wild adventures ahead of him when he drops the magic crystals he receives from a strange old man. Before long James is off on a weird, wonderful journey inside a giant peach with a bizarre group of companions - including a human-sized Earthworm, Ladybug, and Centipede!

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When poor James Henry Trotter loses his parents in a horrible rhinoceros accident, he is forced to live with his two wicked aunts, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. After three years he becomes "the saddest and loneliest boy you could find." Then one day, a wizened old man in a dark-green suit gives James a bag of magic crystals that promise to reverse his misery forever. When James accidentally spills the crystals on his aunts' withered peach tree, he sets the adventure in motion. From the old tree a single peach grows, and grows, and grows some more, until finally James climbs inside the giant fruit and rolls away from his despicable aunts to a whole new life. James befriends an assortment of hilarious characters, including Grasshopper, Earthworm, Miss Spider, and Centipede--each with his or her own song to sing. Roald Dahl's rich imagery and amusing characters ensure that parents will not tire of reading this classic aloud, which they will no doubt be called to do over and over again! With the addition of witty black and white pencil drawings by Lane Smith (of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs fame), upon which the animation for the Disney movie was based, this classic, now in paperback, is bursting with renewed vigor. We'll just come right out and say it: James and the Giant Peach is one of the finest children's books ever written. (Ages 9 to 12)

From Publishers Weekly

Lane Smith trades stinky cheese for fantastic fruit with his black-and-white illustrations for Roald Dahl's classic 1961 novel, James and the Giant Peach. The reissue is timed to coincide with the release of the Disney animated motion picture based on Smith's suitably subversive visual interpretation.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 3 and up
  
• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Puffin (April 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140374248
• ISBN-13: 978-0140374247
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 4.8 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (260 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #58,129 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #15 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Children's Books > Authors & Illustrators, A-Z > ( D ) > Dahl, Roald

More About the Author

Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was born in Llandaff, South Wales, and went to Repton School in England. His parents were Norwegian, so holidays were spent in Norway. As he explains in Boy, he turned down the idea of university in favor of a job that would take him to"a wonderful faraway place. In 1933 he joined the Shell Company, which sent him to Mombasa in East Africa. When World War II began in 1939 he became a fighter pilot and in 1942 was made assistant air attaché in Washington, where he started to write short stories. His first major success as a writer for children was in 1964. Thereafter his children's books brought him increasing popularity, and when he died children mourned the world over, particularly in Britain where he had lived for many years.The BFG is dedicated to the memory of Roald Dahls eldest daughter, Olivia, who died from measles when she was seven - the same age at which his sister had died (fron appendicitis) over forty years before. Quentin Blake, the first Children's Laureate of the United Kingdom, has illustrated most of Roald Dahl's children's books.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite book from childhood., October 12, 2003

By 

Thomas Leonard Niehans "tommytomcat3" (Minneapolis MN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: James and the Giant Peach (Paperback)

I first read "James and the Giant Peach" when I was 9 years old (I am 14 now), and reread it so many times that I actually know the story by heart! This book is funny, exciting and makes me use my imagination.

The story: After his parents are eaten by a rhinoceros (I would've made a tiger eat them instead, since in real life rhinos don't eat meat!), young James Henry Trotter has to go live with his two mean aunts named Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker, who treat him very very badly. Poor James has to live with his aunts for three whole years until one day a mysterious man gives him a bag of magic things. (He tells him they are crocodile tongues.) James is so excited that he starts running back to the house, but when he is underneath an old peach tree in the garden he accidentally slips and spills all the tiny little things and they dig themselves into the roots of the tree.
Suddenly a peach appears on the very tip of the tree and then starts to grow and grow and doesn't stop until it is as big as a house! The aunts are so excited about this that instead of immediately eating pieces off the peach they start charging people to see the peach. After everyone has left they force James to pick up all the litter that the people left behind. Poor James is left all alone in the dark! For no particular reason, James walks up to the peach and starts touching it. He notices that there is a rather large hole in the peach. He crawls in, and the hole becomes a tunnel. He keeps on crawling until he reaches the center of the peach. He meets seven oversized insects who turn out to have swallowed some of the tiny little things that James had spilled. When the stem snips off (with some help, of course), the peach rolls off and the eight travellers embark on the adventure of a lifetime!

Roald Dahl was my favorite childhood author; I have read most of his children's books, and this is my personal favorite.

I recommend this book to anyone between the ages of 7 and 12.

19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 4 1/2* Old-Fashioned Dickensian Fun, February 20, 2003

By 

M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: James and the Giant Peach (Isis Large Print for Children Windrush) (Hardcover)

(I am reviewing the 1988 Windrush large print version of the original 1961 book by Dahl. Illustrations are by Michel Simeon.)

This fanciful book's old-fashioned style and content almost feels as if it were written at the turn of the 19th Century, and the James' initial misery recalls Dickens. The writing's rough edges make it seem more like a personal story, rather than the product of some anonymous conglomerate.

Unfortunately, the beginning of the book (where James magically escapes from his aunts) seems contrived, the aunts are unbelievably cruel, and the writing is somehow flat. However, the book picks up after James and his newfound insect friends escape via a magic peach. The bantering and arguing insect personalities are reminiscent of those in "Winnie the Pooh" and "The Wizard of Oz." (The feuding Centipede and Worm are a bit like emotionally labile Tigger and pessimistic Eeyore; the "LadyBird" plays a role similar to the Scarecrow.) The insects' squabbling and fear is balanced by James' good-hearted and well-reasoned actions that save them from sharks, the angry "Cloud People" (who throw hail, water, and rainbow-making paint at them), and the fearful citizens of New York City.

Dahl has lots of word play ("Oh, just look at the vermicious gruesome face!"), and songs done in a kind of "Alice of Wonderland" meets Broadway style: "I've eaten many strange and scrumptious dishes in my time, Like jellied gnats and dandyprats and earwigs cooked in slime, And mice with rice-they're really nice/When roasted in their prime. (But don't forget to sprinkle them with just a pinch of grime.)" As you can see, the humor (and some of Michel Simeon's illustrations for the 1988 edition) is sometimes fun-gothic, and the demise of the aunts is not like that pictured in the movie based on the book (They get run over by the peach.) Overall, however, and despite its slow beginning, the book is stylish and lots of fun.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Graet Stuff For Children!!!!!!!!!, November 24, 2007

By 

Geetha Krishnan (Kerala, India) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: James and the Giant Peach (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a great book for children from 4 to 10. I am way past that age but I still enjoyed it. Dahl's style of writing is excellent and the story is quite simple and interesting. All in all, an excellent book and I would recommend anyone with children to buy it.